WHOI researchers find link between local jellyfish and Russian species

Sunday

Apr 23, 2017 at 7:05 PMApr 23, 2017 at 7:05 PM

Christine Legere @ChrisLegereCCT

WOODS HOLE — Long native to the northern Pacific Ocean along the Russian coast, a dime-size jellyfish with a lengthy name and a wallop of a sting is being found in coves, salt ponds and estuaries along Waquoit Bay on the southern-facing shore of Cape Cod and on Martha’s Vineyard.

Two Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists, Annette Govindarajan and Mary Carman, have spent three years tracking down possible connections between the local stingers and the north Pacific variety long known for their powerful punch. Their work, published April 18 in the journal Peer J, has looked at how the tiny creatures may have arrived on the East Coast and what can be done to control the spread of their population.

"They are a millimeter or less in size and could attach to all kinds of surfaces," Govindarajan said of the jellyfish in their polyp form.

The Gonionemus, commonly known as the clinging jellyfish, were first discovered in Eel Pond in Woods Hole in 1894. The clingers turned up in saltwater ponds and estuaries, where relatively still waters allowed them to attach to eelgrass and seaweed by sticky pads at the end of their tentacles.

The creatures range in diameter from dime-sized to quarter-sized with orange, yellow or purple crosses in their nearly transparent bells, ringed by as many as 90 tentacles.

Those earlier jellyfish, extensively studied by turn-of-the-century Woods Hole scientists, were not reported as stinging. Populations on the Cape plummeted in the 1930s due to an eelgrass die-off, and when the tiny sea creatures reappeared in 1990 in Waquoit Bay, reports of painful stings from mini-harpoons on the tentacles of this virulent new batch accompanied their arrival.

While stings are painful, the effects are temporary. There has never been a fatality reported either here or in Russia, according to Govindarajan, a biologist at WHOI. She has studied the clinging jellyfish population for the last three years with Carman, a fellow WHOI researcher.

Current Cape mainland hotspots for the clingers are Hamblin, Jehu and Sage Lot ponds, on the Mashpee side of Waquoit Bay, and a back area of Bass River.

“When you stir up the bottom, you see them pulsing to the surface,” Govindarajan said. “I personally have not been stung, but people describe the pain as extreme.”

“We were working in shellfish seed in Hamblin Pond when I got stung,” York said. He applied some Adolph’s meat tenderizer to his skin because the papaya extract contained in it can even calm the sting of a Portuguese Man O’ War, he said.

“Later that evening, I had a systemic reaction,” York said. “I got waves of paralysis, but not complete paralysis. I went to the emergency room and they gave me an antihistamine that cleared the symptoms."

Some of his staff have also been stung by the clinging jellyfish while seeding.

“Now we wear gloves and waders and we’re careful to look around first,” York said.

Carman was stung on the lip in 2013 while doing research in the eel grass of Farm Pond, on Martha’s Vineyard.

“It felt like five hypodermic needles had injected simultaneously into my lip,” she said.

Carman’s focus has been on hot spots on Martha’s Vineyard: in addition to Farm Pond, clinging jellyfish have been found in Tashmoo, Menemsha and Sengekontacket ponds.

Those sting symptoms are strikingly similar to those described by victims of the clingers off the Russian coast.

Research on the clingers was done in collaboration with Russian scientists, Govindarajan said. Thanks to specimens supplied by the Russians, they found a genetic match.

“They were the same species as the ones on the Cape,” she said.

What the scientists also found was that there is more than one variety of the clinging jellyfish along the East Coast — some are toxic and some aren’t.

“The details about how and when an invasion, or possibly multiple invasions, occurred aren’t clear,” Govindarajan said of the stinging variety. She noted they likely travel when in the polyp stage of the life cycle, which can attach to boat hulls, bivalve shells or seaweed, which is used as packing material.

“Polyps can bud off any number of jellyfish in a short amount of time," she said. "It started in Waquoit, but we’ve seen them now expanding north and south.”

Last summer saw a bout of stings on the New Jersey coast.

Expansion of the population with the virulent toxin concerns both Govindarajan and Carman.

“Next, we’ll figure out how they are getting around,” Govindarajan said. “They are in finite places now, so we can warn people to avoid them.”

While the jellyfish are active from June through September — the peak tourist months in the region — beachgoers are unlikely to be in jeopardy, Govindarajan said. The clinging jellyfish avoid open water and waves, she said.